Ricketts, Cotton Statement on TikTok Being Removed from App Stores

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) issued the following statement in response to the news that Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft were among the U.S. companies to remove TikTok from their app stores in accordance with the bipartisan law passed by Congress.

“We commend Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft for following the law and halting operations with ByteDance and TikTok, and we encourage other companies to do the same,” said the Senators. “The law, after all, risks ruinous bankruptcy for any company who violates it. Now that the law has taken effect, there’s no legal basis for any kind of “extension” of its effective date. For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China. Only then will Americans be protected from the grave threat posed to their privacy and security by a communist-controlled TikTok.”

Ricketts has long highlighted the threats posed by TikTok to Americans’ security and privacy. In 2020, Ricketts became the first Governor to ban TikTok on state devices. Last year, he voted for the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. On Wednesday, he blocked an attempt from Senate Democrats on the Senate floor to extend the timeline for a sale.